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Admissions Straight Talk

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Sep 28, 2022 • 49min

How to Get Into Georgetown Law

Dreaming of a spot at Georgetown Law? Here's all you need to know [Show Summary]It’s hard to get a law education any closer to the heartbeat of policy and legal action than at Washington D.C.’s Georgetown Law School, labeled by the Washington Post as “the country’s most popular law school.” Andrew Cornblatt, the Dean of Admissions explains exactly what it takes to get accepted to this top-ranked and highly competitive program.Interview with Andrew Cornblatt, Dean of Admissions at Georgetown Law [Show Notes]Thanks for joining me for the 489th episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Are you applying to law school this cycle? Are you planning ahead to apply to law school next year or perhaps later? Are you competitive at your target programs? Accepted's Law School Admissions Quiz can give you a quick reality check. Just go to accepted.com/law-quiz, complete the quiz, and you'll not only get an assessment but also tips on how to improve your chances of acceptance. Plus it's all free. For today's interview, I'm delighted to have Andrew Cornblatt, Metta and Keith Krach Dean of Admissions and Associate Vice President of Graduate Admissions and Enrollment at Georgetown Law. A graduate of Harvard University and Boston College School of Law, Dean Cornblatt has been a member of the Georgetown community since 1980. He became Dean of Admissions at Georgetown Law in 1991 and served as Dean of Admissions at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute, now the McCourt School of Public Policy from 2002 to 2016. It's hard to find someone with more experience in admissions.Can you give an overview of the more distinctive elements of the Georgetown Law School JD program? [2:36]I think the two things that are most unique about Georgetown are its size and its location. Georgetown Law is a large law school. I think it's among the largest in the United States, with 575 entering students. Even though it’s a big law school, we work very hard to make it a big law school with a small law school feel. These are small classes and the campus is beautiful. It's like a small college with lots of different buildings. We pay particular attention to individual students and their needs. We have big programs, but we have individual people who deserve individual attention and that's what we focus on. As far as location goes, we’re right at the heart of Washington D.C. in the center of law in the USA. This is where everything gets made, interpreted, enforced, and implemented. That all happens within a 10-block radius of where I'm sitting right now in my office. When you have that as a resource, and that's available to you, it enhances the electricity of what you're studying. It's hands-on stuff, but it allows Georgetown to be at the crossroads of theory and practice.When I went to law school all those years ago, and when people go to law school now, so much of it is about the theory of law and what happened way back then and cases from the 1800s. All of that's important. I'm not saying it isn't. But this generation of law students is hands-on. They watch it happen on video. They stay attuned to every development every 10th of a second through social media and all of the alerts they get. This is a place that's right at the center of all of that. That's part of our course structure too. The plus side of being at a big law school is you have that many more courses from which to choose. But if you want to know where the heart is beating, it's right outside my window. I think that's what excites students when they come here.What are some of the programs that are unique to GeorgetoFollow UsYouTubeFacebookLinkedInContact Uswww.accepted.comsupport@accepted.com+1 (310) 815-9553
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Sep 20, 2022 • 19min

Approaching Your MBA Application

Expert tips on how to approach your MBA application [Show Summary]What’s the right way to approach an MBA application? Like a productivity challenge? A jigsaw puzzle? A to-do list? Linda Abraham weighs in and shares her expert tips to master this process. Linda Abraham, Founder and CEO of Accepted, shares her insights into how best to approach your MBA application [Show Notes]Welcome to the 487th episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Thanks for joining me. Today is going to be a solo show where I answer common questions while also providing information on how to approach your MBA application. If you're not applying for an MBA, there's still going to be a lot for you to learn from this episode, specifically from its strategic approach to the application process and its focus on using every element of the application to your advantage, not to mention thinking about where you want to end up after you get the degree.For you, MBAs, when you finish listening to this episode, you're invited to take a free six-question quiz at Accepted.com/MapMBA to see how well you've absorbed the lessons in this show. You'll also gain access to other relevant resources, both free and paid, that you can use as you attempt to incorporate the advice contained in this podcast into your strategy for a successful MBA application. I realize it is an enormous effort to apply successfully to an MBA program, especially if you're applying to top MBA programs with acceptance rates like 6%, 10%, and 20%. That means they reject the overwhelming majority of applicants who submit applications.Indeed, the elite programs reject many, if not most, admissible candidates. You have a challenge, even if you have good stats, and that challenge is even greater if you don't. Actually, it's really a few challenges:How can you make your application as impressive as possible?How are you going to tell your story and effectively present the non-statistical elements of your application, specifically the essays and, when necessary, a video?How can you make the process efficient?Those are the questions I'm going to address. Listen in. There's a lot to cover here.How to choose the right schools [2:47]The foundation of any effective application process is choosing the right schools to apply to. In order to determine what those schools are, you must have professional direction, defined for MBAs as having a preferred industry in which you want to work and a function you would like to perform. Note that this is not necessarily what you want to study. It's different. The basic question is, where do you want to end up? What's your goal for the MBA? Because that goal, or direction, becomes your north star in the application process and when you arrive on campus.You also need competitive academic qualifications. You're going to have to show through your application that you can handle both the communications and quantitative demands of a top MBA program. These qualifications are usually revealed via your transcript and your test score, but they can also be revealed via certifications and work experience, your application itself, your writing, and your interview. The third thing you're going to need is a sense of what's important to you in an MBA program. It might be location. This can also be a part of your professional direction. For example, you may want to work in London or you might want to work on Wall Street or you might want to work in Silicon Valley. Those are more professional, goal-oriented location questions. What I'm talking about is just personal preference. Do you prefer being in Follow UsYouTubeFacebookLinkedInContact Uswww.accepted.comsupport@accepted.com+1 (310) 815-9553
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Sep 13, 2022 • 48min

How to Get Accepted to Cornell Johnson MBA

Tune in to hear all that Cornell Johnson's dynamic MBA program has to offer, and more [Show Summary]Eddie Asbie, Executive Director of Admissions and Scholarship at Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management, dives into this dynamic program that equips students for careers in finance, tech, healthcare, and more. Interview with Eddie Asbie, Executive Director of Admissions and Scholarship at Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management [Show Notes]Welcome to the 488th episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Thanks for tuning in. Before we speak with our wonderful guest, I want to invite you to take advantage of a fantastic tool at Accepted, the MBA Admissions Quiz. Are you ready to apply to your dream MBA programs? Are you competitive at those programs? Accepted's MBA Admissions Quiz can not only give you a quick reality check, but also tips on how to improve your qualifications. Plus, it's all free. Use the calculator at accepted.com/mbaquiz.It gives me great pleasure to have, for the first time on Admissions Straight Talk, Eddie Asbie, Executive Director of Admissions and Scholarship at Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management. Eddie earned his bachelor's in communications from the University at Buffalo and a masters from SUNY Buffalo in Student Personnel Administration. Between his undergraduate and graduate degrees, he worked at SUNY Buffalo and while in grad school, he served as an Admissions Advisor at the University of Buffalo. He joined the Johnson School in 2012 as an Assistant Director of Admissions and Financial Aid and became the Executive Director of Admissions and Scholarship in June 2021. Can you give an overview of the Cornell Johnson full-time MBA program, focusing on its more distinctive elements? [2:16]We're located in Ithaca, New York, which is in central New York. Our MBA program is a general management MBA program that allows our students to really get the basic business fundamentals while also expanding personally and professionally throughout their career goals. We are known for elements of our program, such as our immersion learning program, which gives our students the opportunity to immerse themselves in their particular career paths. This happens in the spring semester of their first year. It gives students that hands-on experience while taking advanced level courses in their particular immersions so they can ultimately be able to hit the ground running with the internship itself.We also have Cornell Tech, MBA program located in New York City. If you are looking for a residential two-year program, there are opportunities for our program to collaborate with the Cornell Tech campus in New York City. There are a lot of other great features like flexibility in the program to work with other departments. Our program really gives you the opportunity to customize the program the way you best see fit. We understand it's a business school, but we also understand the direction that our students are going into spans so many different industries, whether it is hospitality, healthcare, tech, or anything else. We have some great programs here at Cornell that allow students to be able to tap into other areas.Is there anything new at Cornell Johnson that you'd like to highlight? [4:49]I will say that within my time here at Johnson, we've done a pretty good job of making sure that we stay relevant with what's happening and changes to our curriculum. One of the new exciting things that I would like to share is the opportunity to do a 1+1 program, which is a full year here in Ithaca, along with a full year at CorneFollow UsYouTubeFacebookLinkedInContact Uswww.accepted.comsupport@accepted.com+1 (310) 815-9553
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Aug 30, 2022 • 47min

How To Get Accepted To Washington University School Of Medicine in St. Louis

What's new at Washington University School of Medicine? [Show Summary]Dr. Valerie Ratts, Associate Dean for Admissions at Washington University School of Medicine, shares what's new in the program, including the Gateway Curriculum and the virtual interview experience. Interview with Dr. Valerie Ratts, Associate Dean for Admissions at Washington University School of Medicine [Show Notes]Welcome to the 485th episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Thanks for joining me today. Are you ready to apply to your dream medical schools? Are you competitive at your target programs? Accepted's Med School Admissions Quiz can give you a quick reality check. Just go to accepted.com/medquiz, complete the quiz, and you will not only get an assessment, but also tips on how to improve your chances of acceptance. Plus, it's all free. Today's guest, Dr. Valerie Ratts, earned her MD at Johns Hopkins, where she also did her residency in obstetrics and gynecology as well as a fellowship in reproductive endocrinology. She joined the Washington University faculty in 1994 and currently serves as Associate Dean for Admissions and a Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Washington University School of Medicine. Can you give us an overview of the WashU School of Medicine program focusing on its more distinctive elements? [1:52]Well, actually, our curriculum has changed since I last spoke to you. We're very excited about it. It's called the Gateway Curriculum. We're reimagining how we should best be educating medical students for the future and we deliver that in three phases.In phase one, we concentrate on the fundamentals and foundational modules in medicine. But we're integrating it the entire time. When you're getting basic science courses, we're integrating clinical problems, social sciences, health equity, and justice. All of those things come up during phase one. We also have clinical immersions during that period where students go into the clinical spaces for three weeks at three times during phase one. They’ll go to inpatient, outpatient, and peri-procedural spaces. The goal is not to be the physician. Yes, you get some clinical skills. Yes, you see how the different units work. But the goal is to get a perspective of how all the other healthcare providers in that space, including social workers, nurses, and pharmacists, work together. We think that medical students, at that point in their education, haven't quite learned all the bad habits that physicians get. They have a very unique perspective. We have small group sessions where the medical students will meet with other medical students and their professors to talk about the things that they observed in those spaces, good and bad. The thought is that when they become the physician down the road, they can reflect upon that period of time, and it will hopefully make them better doctors in the future. That's one of the things that we're doing in phase one, getting them very quickly into the clinical spaces and using that unique perspective that an early medical student has. Then we have phase two. This is the gateway to clinical medicine. This is when students rotate through the six big specialties in medicine, OB/GYN, medicine, surgery, neurology, pediatrics, and psychiatry. All medical schools require you to rotate through these clinical services. You're basically trying on all the hats to learn what type of medicine you really enjoy. What we do uniquely in this phase of the curriculum is we have the clerkship start with bookends. In the beginning, we review foundational modules and science that wFollow UsYouTubeFacebookLinkedInContact Uswww.accepted.comsupport@accepted.com+1 (310) 815-9553
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Aug 23, 2022 • 44min

How to Get Accepted to UCLA Anderson

Everything you need to know about the UCLA Anderson MBA program [Show Summary]Alex Lawrence, UCLA Anderson’s Assistant Dean for MBA Admissions explores the hallmarks of the program and discusses what makes a competitive application. Interview with Alex Lawrence, Asst. Dean of MBA Admissions and Financial Aid at UCLA Anderson School of Management [Show Notes]Welcome to the 484th episode of Admissions Straight Talk, Accepted's podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Before we get to our wonderful guest, I want to invite you to take advantage of a fantastic tool at Accepted, the MBA Admissions Quiz. Are you ready to apply to your dream MBA programs? Are you competitive at those programs? Accepted's MBA Admissions Quiz can give you a quick reality check. Just complete the quiz, which should only take about five minutes, and you'll not only get an assessment but also tips on how to actually improve your qualifications. Plus, it's all free. hbspt.cta.load(58291, 'a7004604-d7d1-4d1f-98ef-a0ec53d7e590', {}); It gives me great pleasure to have back on Admissions Straight Talk Alex Lawrence, Assistant Dean of MBA Admissions and Financial Aid at UCLA Anderson School of Management, which just happens to be where I earned my MBA. Alex is a fellow Anderson alum who earned his MBA in 1999. Prior to that, he earned a bachelor's in Electrical Engineering. After earning his MBA, he worked in management consulting for four years and then returned to UCLA Anderson as Director of the Riordan Program. In 2012, he became first the director and then the Assistant Dean for MBA Admissions. Can you give an overview of the Anderson full-time MBA program for those listeners who aren't that familiar with it, focusing on its more distinctive element? [2:15]The UCLA Anderson MBA is obviously near and dear to my heart, being an alumnus of the program and now running the admission side of things. My relationship with the school goes back over 25 years.It’s a two-year program that balances the opportunity to go through the traditional core elements while also taking what you learn in the classroom to actually participate in a number of different experiential or practicum types of activities. We actually started school yesterday and today is day two for the class of 2024. One of the things I think shows how we're always innovating in our program is that beyond traditional summer internships, more and more of our students are doing academic internships. Part of the graduation requirements is to satisfy a global requirement. Our students have been taking on some of those different opportunities for almost 10 years now, where they do a consulting project with a global company or perhaps they travel overseas. We're a smallish class size of around 330 students. We don't necessarily look at students with just a business background. It's really diverse domestically, internationally, and across genders also career interests as well. We have students who go to a lot of different areas, not just consulting and finance, but real estate, entertainment, and more.We're always trying to push the envelope, and we added a course in ethics to the core classes students need to take in order to graduate. Students have to participate in that. In our career services, there's a required class as well that our students have to take. There are a lot of different elements. Once you peel back the layers and learn more about Anderson, there's a lot to find out. I hope we'll get a chance to talk about a lot of that and more.How does the Anderson course in ethics differ from traditional corporate sociaFollow UsYouTubeFacebookLinkedInContact Uswww.accepted.comsupport@accepted.com+1 (310) 815-9553
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Aug 16, 2022 • 28min

University of Michigan's Ross MBA program: Everything You Need to Know

What’s new at Michigan Ross? [Show Summary]Taya Sapp, Senior Associate Director of Admissions, shares all of the latest updates including a new dean, new testing policy, and a new essay question.Interview with Taya Sapp, Senior Associate Director of Admissions at Michigan Ross School of Business [Show Notes]Welcome to the 479th episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Thanks for listening. You've seen the stats that most people have a great return on their MBA investment, but what about you? Are you going to see that return? And how much will it be? We've created a tool that will help you assess whether the MBA is likely to be a good investment for you individually. Just go to accepted.com/mbaroicalc, complete the brief questionnaire, and you will not only get an assessment but also the opportunity to calculate different scenarios. And it's all free. It gives me great pleasure to have on Admissions Straight Talk for the first time Taya Sapp, Senior Associate Director of Admissions at Michigan Ross School of Business. Taya practically bleeds Michigan blue. She graduated from the University of Michigan with a bachelor's degree in American Culture in 2003 and then worked as an Admissions Counselor at another college for several years before returning to Michigan. She joined the admissions staff at Michigan Ross in 2011, rose through the ranks, and today is the Senior Associate Director of Admissions. Could you start with a basic overview of Ross's full-time MBA program for listeners who may not be that familiar with it, focusing on its more distinctive elements? [2:09]I think the one thing that we are really known for is learning by doing. I always like to tell people if you learn best by doing, there's no better place to be than Michigan Ross. I can give a couple of examples of that. The cornerstone is MAP which stands for Multidisciplinary Action Projects. It's a seven-week consulting project that every single student does at the end of their first year at Ross. This past year we had projects with Blue Origin, a social responsibility project with Amazon, and we also had nonprofit students analyzing data sets to help design fundraising campaigns. There’s a pretty big variety in the projects. It's a huge differentiator for us because students spend a full seven weeks doing it and then get to do their internship. A lot of times, people think of it as almost two internships. It's also a great opportunity for travel. We did start sending people internationally again this year, and the nice thing is the sponsor covers all travel expenses.Can you tell us a little more about what's new in the Ross MBA program? [3:33]We have a new Dean starting on August 1st. We are really excited to have her come to Ross and see her vision for leading our community here. There are a few other things I'm excited about. We started something called the Business+Tech initiative this past year which is a hub for everything tech. They launched a tech literacy week, which is basically a bunch of workshops to help people orient themselves to different areas of tech. It covers everything from how a lack of diversity can impact artificial intelligence to boot camps and machine learning and different programs like Python and Blockchain. They’re really helping prepare students for not just the recruiting aspect but also the actual knowledge in tech.We have seven different student investment funds at Ross, and the newest one just started this year. It's called the Michigan Clean Venture, and it's focused on clean tech investments. I think it’s really exciting that our stFollow UsYouTubeFacebookLinkedInContact Uswww.accepted.comsupport@accepted.com+1 (310) 815-9553
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Aug 9, 2022 • 44min

An Inside Look at The Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine

Wondering if you're a good fit for the Geisinger Commonwealth SOM? [Show Summary]Dr. Michelle Schmude, Associate Dean of Admissions at Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine, shares everything that’s new in the program, including a revised curriculum and a unique opportunity that allows students to graduate debt free. Interview with Dr. Michelle Schmude, Associate Dean of Admissions at Geisinger Commonwealth SOM [Show Notes]Welcome to the 482nd episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Thanks for tuning in. Do you know how to get accepted to medical school? Well, Dr. Suzi Schweikert does, and she shares her knowledge and insight in Accepted's free guide, Med School Admissions: What You Need to Know to Get Accepted. Download your free copy at accepted.com/482download.Today's guest, Dr. Michelle Schmude, has spent her career in higher ed administration and med school admissions. After earning her BA in History and Business, she went on to earn an MBA and then a Doctorate in Education from Wilkes University. Since 1996, she has worked in admissions, first as Dean of Full-Time Admissions at Point Park University, then at Kings College, and since 2015, as Director and then as Associate Dean of Admissions, Enrollment Management and Financial Aid at Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine. She's also an Associate Professor of Medical Education at Geisinger. Now that you know a little bit about Dr. Schmude, let's find out about Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine and its admissions policies. Can you give us an overview of the Geisinger Commonwealth Med School program focusing on its more distinctive elements? [1:57]Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine offers the MD degree, which is the Doctorate of Medicine, and we are an allopathic medical school. We are located in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and we were founded in 2008 as the Commonwealth Medical College, which transformed into Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine in 2017.Right now, we enroll 115 students in each medical school class. Our MD curriculum is known as the Total Health Curriculum, and it is divided into three phases. The first phase prepares our students in terms of the principles of medical sciences and practices. The second phase would be our core clinical immersion. And the last phase is our career differentiation and exploration, which prepares students for the transition to residency.Also, highlighted within our MD curriculum and our Total Health curriculum, we have six longitudinal themes, where our students are immersed in Health Equity and Justice, Personal and Professional Development, Health System Citizenship, Primary Care, Community Immersion, and Population Health. These themes are interwoven throughout the four years of our medical school program in both our basic sciences as well as our clinical sciences.Are the themes something that a student chooses to focus on or does everybody cover all six themes through the three stages? [3:44]That's a great question. All of our students participate in the six themes. Additionally, our students participate in active learning sessions. In our medical school curriculum, along with the six themes, we do not have any lectures. So our students prepare ahead of time and they come to class as active participants in their learning experiences. They’ll engage in small groups, workshops, reflection, and case-based learning. They also engage in early clinical experiences, and those experiences do have the six themes woven throughout.It sounds like it's very much of a flipped classroom kind of experience. [4:39]It absoFollow UsYouTubeFacebookLinkedInContact Uswww.accepted.comsupport@accepted.com+1 (310) 815-9553
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Aug 2, 2022 • 37min

Ace the Executive Assessment

Tune in to hear all you need to know about the Executive Assessment [Show Summary]Who is the Executive Assessment for? What is it? And how to prepare for it? Introduced by GMAC a few years ago, for the Executive MBA, the “EA” has gained credibility and acceptability for a variety of MBA programs. Brett Ethridge, test prep expert, weighs in and answers all these questions in this informative interview. Interview with Brett Ethridge, founder and president of Dominate Test Prep [Show Notes]Welcome to the 483rd episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Thanks for listening. You've seen the stats that most people have a great return on their MBA investment. But what about you? Are you going to see that return? How much could it be? We've created a tool that will help you assess whether the MBA is likely to be a good investment for you individually. Just go to accepted.com/mbaroicalc, complete the brief questionnaire, and you’ll not only get an assessment but also the opportunity to calculate different scenarios. And it's all free. Try the MBA ROI Calculator!It gives me great pleasure to have back on Admissions Straight Talk, Brett Ethridge, founder and president of Dominate Test Prep. Brett earned his Bachelor's in Public Policy Studies from Duke in 2000 and then joined the Peace Corps for two years where he worked in Madagascar. He then earned a Master's in International Finance, Trade, and Economic Integration from the University of Denver. In 2010, he founded Dominate the GMAT, which became Dominate Test Prep. Today, Dominate Test Prep provides test preparation for the GMAT, the GRE, SAT, ACT, LSAT, and most importantly for today's conversation, GMAC's Executive Assessment. The Executive Assessment is accepted by many Executive MBA programs, an increasing number of part-time MBA programs, and even several highly ranked full-time MBA programs, including Columbia, Darden, Duke Fuqua, Georgetown, NYU Stern, UT McCombs, and Vanderbilt. Let's learn all about the Executive Assessment. Let's start with a basic question. What is the Executive Assessment? [2:42]It's a standardized test used as part of the admissions process for a wide range of primarily Executive MBA programs in the United States, but also overseas. It’s also being used by an increasing number of online MBA programs, part-time MBA programs, and full-time MBA programs. It's very similar in a lot of ways to the GMAT exam, which is the widely used entrance exam for business school, but different in distinct ways as well. In short, it's a standardized test that a lot of students are taking right now to get into various MBA programs.Why did GMAC develop the Executive Assessment if it already had the GMAT? [3:32]Because they were asked to (if the story is correct). I actually first learned about the Executive Assessment myself at a forum that the GMAC hosted at their headquarters in Ruston, Virginia back in 2018. I think the Executive Assessment had been around for maybe a year or so at that point. It's a fairly new exam at four or five years old. It was my first time really learning about the exam. At that point, only a couple dozen schools were even using it. The story they told us, so this is straight from the GMAC's mouth, is that the admissions directors at a lot of the top executive MBA programs came to them and said, "Look, we love the GMAT. We're currently asking applicants for our Executive MBA programs to take the GMAT. But it's a really steep hurdle in the application process for a demographic of applicants who are in their forties, sometimes fifties. These people have beeFollow UsYouTubeFacebookLinkedInContact Uswww.accepted.comsupport@accepted.com+1 (310) 815-9553
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Jul 26, 2022 • 25min

How to Prep for the MCAT

Expert tips for MCAT success [Show Summary]Todd Bennett, co-founder of The Berkeley Review and expert MCAT instructor, shares his best tips for preparing for and taking the test. Todd Bennett, co-founder of The Berkeley Review and expert MCAT instructor [Show Notes]Welcome to the 480th episode of Admissions Straight Talk, thanks for joining me. Before I introduce our guest today, I'd like to invite you to take Accepted's Med School Admissions Quiz. Ask yourself, "Am I ready to apply to my dream medical schools? Am I competitive at my target programs?" Accepted's Med School Admissions Quiz can give you a quick reality check, just go to accepted.com/medquiz, complete the quiz, and you'll not only get an assessment but also actionable tips on how to improve your chances of acceptance. Plus, it's all free.  hbspt.cta.load(58291, '6f21f36c-c988-4e9c-b947-0b9d4af1557f', {"region":"na1"}); Our guest today is Todd Bennett, whom I met many years ago. He was, at the time, the CEO of the Berkeley Review, and for the entire time, since I met him those many moons ago, he's been an expert MCAT instructor, both for the Berkeley Review and on his own. Is there anything new in terms of the MCAT and the MCAT prep world since we last spoke about a year ago? [1:55]Well, the biggest thing is that COVID restrictions have basically simmered away and it's no longer the same concern it was. The content hasn't seemed to change much, but the delivery and all the stress and weird times looks like it's just going to go back to the regular shot. So that's the biggest thing. There are still some basic protocols, but it's so much less stressful than it was during the pandemic.How do you recommend students prepare for the MCAT? [2:42]The biggest thing at the very start is to look at what you're studying. The only company that puts out realistic questions that have been on the MCAT, or are very similar, is the AAMC. It’s the company that is responsible for the test. Start with their materials. They have an MCAT guide that's the best thing on the market. All these people with “super secrets” are pretty much just people who've read that book from start to finish.They're pretty straightforward in what percentages of the questions they give, how they ask their questions, and what they're looking for. If you start there and really analyze and break that down, you will realize that you don't have to know the material at the same level you studied for college. It's not that it's harder or easier. It's different in that you have to apply it.I'll take physics, for instance. It’s one of the topics I taught for many years. In college, people memorize equations, learn to do problems, show their work, box their answer, and pray for partial credit. That's physics in a nutshell. On the MCAT, they're going to talk about some experiment they do in biochemistry with some machine that uses an electric field, and they'll want to know, "What's true of this electric field if we turn up the voltage", or, "What's true if we move the plates further apart or closer together?" Suddenly you have to take that physics, and apply it to a bio experiment. Getting used to that is the hardest thing I find people have to do. They spend so much time memorizing facts that they never take time to get used to what the questions and passages are like, and they get shocked when they start doing AAMC materials. It’s the number one reason why people postpone or have to repeat. My best advice is to start with the real deal, analyze it, learn what you can from it, and then start your study.How much time shoFollow UsYouTubeFacebookLinkedInContact Uswww.accepted.comsupport@accepted.com+1 (310) 815-9553
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Jul 19, 2022 • 49min

​​How to Get Into Duke Law

Hear about possible changes to the law admissions process and how to get accepted [Show Summary]Mark Hill, Assistant Dean of Admissions at Duke Law, has worked in admissions for twenty years. In this episode, he shares his thoughts on how law schools will be affected by a potential recession and the possible elimination of a test requirement. Mark explores how applicants, especially those hoping to get accepted to Duke, should handle the shifting landscape. (Please note: Between the recording and publication of our interview, Mark Hill was promoted to Assistant Dean of Admissions at Duke Law. The recording has his old title; the show notes reflect his new title.)Interview with Mark Hill, Assistant Dean of Admissions at Duke Law [Show Notes]Thanks for joining me for the 481st episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Are you applying to law school this cycle? Are you planning ahead to apply to law school next year or later? Are you competitive at your target programs? Accepted's Law School Admissions Quiz can give you a quick reality check. Just go to accepted.com/law-quiz, complete the quiz, and you'll not only get an assessment but also tips on how to improve your qualifications and your chances of acceptance. And it's all free. I'm delighted to have an Admissions Straight Talk, Mark Hill, Assistant Dean of Admissions at Duke Law. Mark earned his bachelor's degree in Cultural Anthropology from Duke, and then later earned a master's in Higher Ed from Northwestern, where he also served as Assistant Director of Admissions. In 2002, joined Duke Law as an Admissions officer. Since 2013, he has served Duke Law as Senior Director/Assistant Dean of Admissions. Can you give us an overview of the more distinctive elements of the Duke Law School JD program? [2:21]The way that I think about it, there are two elements that characterize Duke. One is that we're among a handful of really top-tier national law schools with students who come from all over and have really great job prospects all across the country. Most of our grads don't stay in North Carolina. They're looking elsewhere. There's a handful of law schools like that. The other thing that makes us distinctive is that we have a relatively small class size. We're in a smaller city and so we’re a smaller school. We can really give individual attention to students. We help everybody who comes here craft their own course through the opportunities at Duke to get to where they want to end up.Because it's a smaller school and a smaller city, we really attract folks who are intending to be full-time law students. They're focused on engaging with one another and with their professors. I suppose it's not for everybody, but for people who want that kind of full-on focused experience, it can be really great. I've often mentioned a couple of distinctive dual degrees. We have two JD/LLM degrees that can be completed in the three years that it would take to do a JD so they don't add any additional time. You can get a really good concentration and an LLM focusing either on international and comparative law and all the spectrum of the things that means from public law to finance and corporate transactions. The other one focuses on law and entrepreneurship. Maybe you want to be a lawyer who works in the startup space or who works with venture capital. Maybe you have entrepreneurial ideas of your own. Maybe you just want to work for law firms that help provide legal services to those kinds of companies. The JD/LLM in law and entrepreneurship is a great thing there. Those are Duke-specific dual degrees. Of cFollow UsYouTubeFacebookLinkedInContact Uswww.accepted.comsupport@accepted.com+1 (310) 815-9553

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